Mod Archive Forums

Music Production => Tracking => Topic started by: xarn on April 24, 2008, 20:50:14

Title: modern tracking methods
Post by: xarn on April 24, 2008, 20:50:14
Hey guys, there are obviously a few of us (including me) who can't switch away from tracking.

I'm wondering, who uses interesting methods of integrating a tracker into their more modern setup?

Im aware that Renoise is currently known as good way to track VSTs.

Does anyone track hardware digital/analog synths?
Does anyone track Reason, or any other non vst?

I started with scream/impulse tracker long ago. then I switched to hardware using more modern midi programs (bleh)
I used to track hardware synths, (with a homebuilt midi tracker, id have used renoise or any of the others if they had decent midi timing) but after being frustrated with the bandwidth of midi(even with multiple ports and perfect timing), I have given up and gone to reason, I would use renoise but I was never into fasttracker.

I cant stand a bassdrum and a snare drum not hitting the same place at the exact same time, with the exact same phasing effect, so tracking hardware via midi is out of the question for me now.

My current setup is a tracker setup as a scratchpad, i press f6 to play it and edit some notes till I like them, then I press another button and it sends them all to reasons sequencer, so I never have to use a piano roll, and the timing is perfect. I only recently started this, cause 'thor' came to reason and made it worth using for me.

I'm wondering if any of you have any unorthodox methods that work well for you.. it would be interesting for all of us to hear.
Title: Re: modern tracking methods
Post by: Saga Musix on April 24, 2008, 22:38:02
i work with modplug and my synthesizer. still. i have done that for more than 4 years now. in the beginning, it was just sampling from the synth, but now i also start using it to write down more complex melodies and stuff. i also use VST plugins in modplug...
Title: Re: modern tracking methods
Post by: xarn on April 25, 2008, 01:17:09
Very cool, maybe I'll look into openmpt again, your music is good stuff, and you have a LOT of it.
Title: Re: modern tracking methods
Post by: Ceekayed on April 26, 2008, 12:49:03
I've never had to touch more modern tools to get the sound I wanted, so I've sticked to IT2.14 since '96. I just recently switched to chibitracker due to it's reverb/chorus settings, support for stereo samples and more memory capacity - saves me the trouble of exporting the songs channel by channel for individual channel effects, which I actually did a couple times before.

So basically I've just learned to use the IT interface and commands so well that I can do just about everything with it, providing I have the correct samples. I also recently bought Roland Juno-D, mostly for playing purposes but it also helps alot with finding the proper sounds.

I also rarely use renoise with some vsti's for bass/synthlines.

Oh, and post-processing happens with Soundforge 6.0 with a bunch of plugins (mainly compressors and limiters).
Title: Re: modern tracking methods
Post by: barryvan on April 28, 2008, 16:47:47
I'm also an OpenMPT devotee. But I must admit that I don't put my stuff up here, mainly because I use VSTis almost exclusively, particularly Kontakt. The fact of the matter is that nowadays, you can produce production-quality music using trackers, sequencers, and whatever else you like - in terms of output, they're all much of a muchness. (Not that I produce production-quality music, but anyway...) You might have to work a bit harder to get the tracker to work the way you want it to, particularly at first, but the more you work with it, the quicker and easier it'll become.

To my mind, it's better to use a really solid, free system (like OpenMPT), and spend your money on plugs and hardware.
Title: Re: modern tracking methods
Post by: Oliwerko on May 05, 2008, 19:02:53
Maybe its a little bit off-topic, but is there a way to save to mods/xms/any module format from Renoise?
Title: Re: modern tracking methods
Post by: raina on May 08, 2008, 20:50:22
No, there isn't. Maybe with some (non-existing) XRNS tool you could make something of the XML but seems pretty pointless to me.
Title: Re: modern tracking methods
Post by: Oliwerko on May 09, 2008, 23:27:52
Thanks, I was just curious....